20 Years of Pacific Voices: A Community Celebration

FINAL WEEKEND: Incident at Vichy

October 24 to November 4�� | Floyd and Delores Jones Playhouse

UW School of Drama’s season opener is a production that the New York Times considered “one of the most important plays of our time” in 1964. The questions at the heart of this story—about evil, complicity, self-preservation, and the death of human decency—are perhaps more resonant now than at any time since that first production. Guest Director Kelly Kitchens, who is well-known to local audiences for her work at Seattle Shakespeare Company and Seattle Public Theater, among others, directs an all-male cast.

$10 tickets for UW students |

Taiwan Philharmonic with Stephen Hough, Piano and Shao-Chia Lü, Conductor

November 3, 7:30 PM | Katharyn Alvord Gerlich Theater

Led by Shao-Chia Lü, the Taiwan Philharmonic has increased the country’s cultural stature at home and on the international stage, and is hailed as “one of Asia’s best” by��The��Los Angeles Times. For its Seattle debut, the orchestra performs Brahm’s pastoral Symphony No. 2 and “Dancing Song” by Gordon Chin, one of Taiwan’s most prolific and sought after composers. The orchestra is joined by acclaimed pianist Stephen Hough for Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1.

$10 tickets for UW students when you show your Husky ID in advance at the or on the night of the show at the Box Office at Meany Hall|

Todd London, artistic director of , a playwriting center in New York, has been named the new executive director of the .

“We are thrilled to have Todd London join us,” said , divisional dean of arts for the UW College of Arts and Sciences. “Todd is an acknowledged leader in the field and has a solid reputation for being one of the most important voices speaking of and for the American theater today.”

A writer and scholar, London has led New Dramatists since 1996. He has taught at Harvard University and New York University, and now teaches at the Yale School of Drama. He earned a master’s of fine arts degree in directing from Boston University and a doctorate in literary studies from American University.

The former managing editor of “American Theatre” magazine, London has written, edited or contributed to a dozen books. Among these is 2013’s “,” which included writing by longtime UW professor .

London will succeed Sarah Nash Gates, the school’s director since 1994, who will return to teaching as a part-time faculty member.

“Todd will bring a fresh perspective on training 21st century artists and scholars,” said Gates. “We are fortunate to find a person with such deep and wide experience as a practitioner, writer and historian. I look forward to his tenure as executive director.”

For his part, London praised the school’s “vibrant” work and “enormous” impact on theater in Seattle and across the nation.

“Recently, I’ve seen up close the remarkable gifts and educational devotion of the faculty and staff, under the energetic leadership of Sarah Nash Gates. The school’s dedication to exploring the roots of theatrical expression and finding creative ways to educate artists and scholars for the new forms of the new century is inspiring.”

He said the job “represents, for me, the fulfillment of a career of service to artists and professional development.”

London will relocate to Seattle and begin his duties as director, and professor of drama, on Aug. 1, pending approval of his hiring by the UW Board of Regents.

He will be joined at the School of Drama by his wife, Karen Hartman, an award-winning playwright who will be a senior artist in residence.

London added, “A great theater school in a great theater city — I can’t wait to begin.”

• This article was based on a by of the School of Drama.

Q: What’s the concept behind this book?

A: Doing an earlier book on the Federal Theatre Project I kept running across references to Jasper Deeter and I was intrigued by the praise and by the lack of information. So after retiring, I had some time to explore his career at Hedgerow, which he founded in the 1920s, and I was struck by his vision and accomplishments.

It was audacious to found a theater literally in the woods that became a beacon for all the causes that we found ennobling in the 20th century: Equal rights for blacks and minorities, freedom to challenge violence and military conscription, sensitivity to the environment and sustainability, and devotion to the notion that the theater can be about ideas and not just for making money.

Truth and beauty were not just buzz words at Hedgerow but part of a lifestyle that empowered them for 30 years of continuous production and established them as America’s most important repertory theater.

Q: You write that Hedgerow played in repertory fashion. What exactly is meant by repertory, in this context?

A: Repertory is a method of production whereby a company of actors is hired to perform a variety of roles in productions that alternate nightly. It was the way most theaters operated until the mid-19^th century when the “starring system” and the popularity of “long runs” forced them to abandon repertory or modify it into weekly changes of fare. Deeter wanted to restore true repertory with its invitation to “come any night.”

Q: How many plays were in active rotation at once? And what was the benefit of the repertory format to the theater and its audience?

A: Deeter liked to add three to five new titles each year so they kept 18 to 20 in the active repertory. He believed that repertory stretched acting ability and hence was the best training, and for audiences it provided variety and exposure to many more plays.������

Q: Deeter believed repertory was “the only model of theater that will allow the actor to grow and discover.” Why?

A: He believed that acting only the “type” that you are was not challenging to performers. He wanted actors to embrace a variety of roles so that they could develop a tool box of skills.

Q: Deeter called Hedgerow the only “rooted growth” theater in the nation. What did he mean?

A: It meant a lot of things to him. He wanted the theater to be rooted in its environment. That meant respect for the natural world as well as a sensitivity to how climate and given circumstances of the material world affected acting choices.

He also wanted his theater to exist in harmony with rural America and for his company to live when possible off the land. He wanted to encourage local actors to participate and become part of a local “company” which would sustain their livelihood in the community. A lot of this sounds very utopian but he did make it work for a long time.

��Q: What was the Hedgerow Theatre’s connection to the arts and crafts movement, and how did that affect its work?

A: I think the major influence — other than sculptor ‘s presence — was devotion to the idea that “honest labor is its own reward” and that the making of theater can be an honest career choice and not a way to accumulate wealth and material objects.

Q: What has the Hedgerow Theatre’s legacy been for regional theater in the United States?

A: I think they demonstrated that repertory could still work. Most of the 1960 regional companies from The Guthrie to the Seattle Rep were founded as “repertory endeavors.” Unfortunately, the economics of 20^th century production could not sustain true repertory work.